Good morning search marketers, we thrive on change, right?
Another week (day?), another feature on its way out of Google Ads. Yesterday, Google announced accelerated ad delivery will no longer be available in Shopping and Search campaigns, as well as those using shared budgets, later this month. (It'll still be available in Video and Display campaigns.)
Why the change? In short, machine learning. It's another case in which Google says its algorithms are now better at predicting the best time to serve an ad based on the advertiser's goals and the context of the query. Standard delivery, Google says, has been improved to optimize ad delivery better than the accelerated option which was designed to serve your ads as often as possible as quickly as possible in the day. If you're using accelerated delivery, start preparing for this change now. Campaigns will be changed automatically to standard by October 1.
"There is very little innovation happening on the consumer side of local search right now," says Contributing Editor Greg Sterling, who has been writing about local search from the beginning. He and Barry Schwartz sat down for a discussion a few weeks ago to discuss his past life as a litigation attorney, Google Shoelace, DuckDuckGo and more. Take 15 minutes to watch the full interview.
In a deeper dive into why there's so little innovation in local search, Greg says the state of local today stands in "stark contrast" to a decade ago. Despite the fact that "trillions of dollars in offline consumer spending are influenced by online marketing and consumer reviews," said Greg, from the consumer-facing perspective, "all the sites you would probably name are roughly 10 (or more) years old." The exception? Nextdoor, yet that site is already eight years old, and Greg finds, has become more cautious of late. Where do you see opportunity for new consumer experiences in local?
Where do SKAGs (single keyword ad groups) stand after the latest change to close variants matching? Fred Vallaeys argues they can still be useful. Read on for his Pro Tip where he sees RSAs fitting in to this latest shift.
Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief
